Monthly Archives: March 2009

I love Zappos, the mail-order shoe company. You pick out shoes on-line (searchable by color, heel-height, style….) and they are delivered OVERNIGHT! Amazing.

So effusive were my raves of Zappos, that Lewis decided to order soccer cleats on-line. “The ones I have now are too small,” he said, “and tryouts are this weekend.” Lewis’ cleats were size 8 1/2 – so I ordered the next size up. When they arrived the next afternoon, he pounced on the box, pulled out the cleats and tried to wedge in his feet. No dice.

“But mom, I need them by Sunday!” he wailed. We ordered the next size up and they arrived with the same expedience as the previous pair. And again, they were too small.

They say the third time’s a charm and indeed it was. The third pair of Pumas, delivered to our door a half hour before tryouts, was like the bowl of porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears…just right. Of course, he will outgrow them before the season even starts.

awhile and then dressed & went to Flora’s. Just starting out with baby – (at 9-30) so

we went down to Miss Perry’s & I had my coat fitted. Quite a walk & felt

some faint standing but better when we got out again. Walked up in about 40 mins. Harold behaved beautifully. John Drew so he came for tea and

then I had a hot sponge bath & dressed & saw F. coming so went out & up town. Etta caught up & we saw Bess G. so went over & met her. Decided to

go to Boston with Etta – so went – on the train. Bought just a pair. of thick stockings – and some cheese & crackers at W. K’s as the men were here in eve playing whist. Home before six – Read in eve – paper & “Octopus” & wrote in here. In bed by 9:45.FLASH to Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Cricket Update: I found the bag o’ bugs. When I went to drive Lewis and his fiends friends to tennis lessons – there it was in the car, on the floor of the passenger’s side. I had only checked the car three times. The crickets were dead and bloated. The boys passed around some Skittles, joked about the dead crickets and tossed the plastic bag of dead insects back and forth.

“Hey! I think one of them is still moving…”

When I got home, I examined the bag of crickets. One was moving. Then, two started to wiggle. In a few minutes, the entire bag of crickets had miraculously come back to life.

Do you ever feel like you are losing your mind? Do you ever walk into the kitchen and can’t remember why you are there or forget where you parked the car in an 8-story garage? Yesterday, I stopped at Petco to buy crickets for my son’s leopard gecko. The clerk knocked twenty-four, large-size, skittering crickets into a plastic bag. “You have a Cricket Corral for these?” ” he asked. “Because they can chew through the bag in a few hours.” I paid twelve cents a piece for the insects, gently placed the bag of bugs in my environmentally-friendly canvas tote and headed home.

When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed that my son’s skis, three paper cups from Starbucks, a banana peel, two pairs of ice skates and some skanky soccer stuff was in the backseat. So, like a pack-mule, I made several trips from the car to the house. Then I made myself a cup of tea, sat down at the kitchen table to take a stab at the Sunday crossword puzzle and remembered about the crickets.

BUT I COULDN’T FIND THEM. They were gone. My canvas tote bag was empty. They weren’t in the car or on the porch or even in the freezer, where I once absentmindedly stashed the mail. The words of the pimply-faced Petco clerk haunt me.

I must not have a life because I really look forward to the mail. But, for the past couple of days the contents of my mailbox have been totally disappointing. Not only were there no juicy letters with colorful stamps from faraway countries, but here was nothing. Just junk mail.

Yesterday's mail - all junk.

I complained to my mailman, Bob, about the quality of my mail. “I’ m not getting any thing good, Bob.” I said. “Maybe, the government could save money by delivering junk mail to my box only five days a week, instead of Monday through Saturday,” I suggested.

Bob bristled. “There is no such thing as junk mail,” he said.

UPDATE: My neighbor just knocked on the door. A piece of mail addressed to ME was accidentally delivered to her. It was an actual letter – with colorful stamps and an airmail envelope -from one of the Japanese students who are coming to stay with us in April. I wrote about our last year’s students (see the “Natto” entry) when I first started this blog. I can’t believe it’s been a year!

The stock market is crashing and the numbers are totally depressing. We have less than half the money we had last year. At least we had it on paper. With private college tuition up around $50K a year, it’s not a good time to have middle-class white kids with mediocre grades.

Maybe my kids aren’t geniuses because they inherited my inability to do math. In fact, numbers have always given me a headache. Here’s some that are particularly irksome.

13- how many pounds I have gained since my last child was born 15 years ago.

2 – the number of cell phones I have put through the washer.

6– how many times during dinner Lewis asked if he could get XBox Live.

3– the number of times we overslept this week and I had to drive Lewis to school.

4 – times two oldest have crashed the car. Luckily, no one -except the car and our insurance rates – were hurt.

3– the sizes that my foot has increased since I got married (and had kids).

7,3022 – the number of dinners that I have cooked since my first child was born.

7,276 – the number of meals I have cooked since becoming a mom that have included macaroni and cheese.

1/2 – the number of pages I am able to read of my book group’s selection before I fall asleep.